August 22-24, 2012 – University of San Marino, Ancient Monastery of Santa Chiara

The Symposium will focus on the current understanding of biological evolution and its relationship with the nature of human beings. Given the interdisciplinary character of the Symposium theme, biologists and paleo-anthropologists, , as well as linguists, philosophers and theologians have been invited.

Sessions outline
Following the successful scheme adopted in the previous editions of the San Marino Symposium, the above topic will be addressed in three sessions, each involving three outstanding thinkers from both science and humanities.

1st session -The nature of biological evolution
What is the status of our understanding of biological evolution? What are the well established facts and what are the open questions? What are, if any, the broader cultural implications of the different models of evolution? How does biological evolution relate to evolutionism in the philosophical debate?

2nd session -The emergence of humans
What are the distinguishing characters of the human nature that mark a difference from the other living creatures? How do paleo-anthropologists recognize the emergence of “human behaviour”? Are the category of infinity and the awareness of self-limitation unique of humans? Is human evolution limited to a biological process?

3rd session -Being humans: between finiteness and infinity
Is the notion of infinity essential to our human nature? We refer to infinity in various contexts: mathematics, metaphysics, recursive natural processes, existential experience: how are these levels related to each other? How can a finite mind grasp open-ended processes and structures?

Guest participants
The Symposium will be open to a limited number of “guest participants” (PhD students, Postdocs, and Scholars) who will be invited to attend the seminar sessions and to participate in the discussion sessions. Application informations can be found in sm2012-announcement.